We track the journey of Mohan Kumar, a teacher who brought electricity and water to the Government Higher Primary School in Koravi and paid for it out of his own pocket Rashmi Patil Edex Live
His several initiatives like setting up a computer lab, making sure there is a steady supply of electricity and water, planting saplings and building huts in the school ensured that it looks no less than a private school.
Before working in Koravi, Mohan used to work in a government higher primary school in Periyapatna, near Mysuru district.
All for education: Mohan spent over Rs 17,000 to install the electric poles and procure other equipment for the school Mohan’s first initiative was to get computers to the higher primary school by pooling in funds from MNCs.
While the primary school was inside the village, the higher primary school was on the outskirts.
The primary school had all facilities including water and electricity which the higher primary school lacked.
When I approached the Karnataka Electricity Board for the provision of electricity, they said that they have to install eight electric poles to provide power to the school which is in the outskirts.
I had to write several letters to various government offices to get their approval for digging a borewell near the school.
Apart from this, the primary school was shifted to the same building as the higher primary school.
Mohan says, "The primary school was in a very old building inside the village premises.

The Associated Press DETROIT (AP) — Thousands of Detroit public schools students were told Tuesday to drink from district-supplied water coolers or bottled water on the first day of classes, after the drinking fountains were shut off because of contaminants in some water fixtures.
The discovery of contaminated water in Detroit’s schools follows a lead-tainted water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
Some children in the city were subsequently found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood, which can lead to developmental delays and other health problems.
"We’re still providing water that we believe is safer, and, ultimately, we actually believe students will drink more water than they did previously," Vitti said Tuesday at Gardner Elementary on Detroit’s west side.
But as parent Quala (KWAY’-luh) Bennett dropped two children off at Gardner Elementary Tuesday, she wondered why the district only recently began testing its water.
I don’t understand why now they’re checking the school system," Bennett said.
"They should have done that once the whole Flint thing happened."
Detroit Schools should not have waited until the start of the school year to alert parents about the water issues, said Rhonda Walton, whose grandson is a kindergartner at Gardner.
And those issues should have been corrected by today."
The American Federation of Teachers is providing the water and hand sanitizers.

But Cheryl Watson, a professor in the biochemistry and molecular biology department at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, advised people not to store bottled water in places that have a significant amount of heat, like a garage or a car parked outside.
“When you heat things up, the molecules jiggle around faster and that makes them escape from one phase into another.
So the plastic leaches its component chemicals out into the water much faster and more with heat applied to it,” Watson told TODAY.
“It’s kind of like when you put mint leaves in your tea.
The heat extracts the mint-tasting molecules and it happens faster in hot tea than it does in cold tea.” If you’ve ever left a plastic water bottle in a hot car or another very warm environment for a while, you may notice the water tastes a little funny, Watson noted: “That’s everybody’s bottom-line sensing mechanism — you can even taste it,” she said.
A 2014 study analyzed 16 brands of bottled water sold in China that were kept at 158 degrees Fahrenheit for four weeks and found increased levels of antimony — listed as a toxic substance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — and bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical in certain plastics that can mimic estrogen and has been under scrutiny for years But of the 16 brands, only one exceeded the EPA standard for antimony and BPA, a University of Florida news release noted.
“I don’t want to mislead people, saying bottled water is not safe.
Bottled water is fine.
You can drink it — just don’t leave it in a hot temperature for a long time.
I think that’s the important message,” Lena Ma, the study’s co-author and a professor of biogeochemistry of trace metals at the University of Florida, told Yahoo Health.

The notice was downgraded to a water quality advisory as turbidity levels in Okanagan Lake have decreased, the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen said.
It took months to plan and organize, but a huge surprise organized by 7-year-old Penticton cancer patient Wills Hodgkinson’s teacher, with the help of his father, went off without a hitch.
"What we did was we told Wills and we let him go into class on Tuesday and he broke the news to the class," said Tim Hodgkinson, Wills’ father.
"The whole week, the kids were just getting more and more excited."
Then, a game of kids-versus-adults soccer in the back yard — along with special guest player Erik Hurtado of the Vancouver Whitecaps.
The Hands-on Heritage Lab will be a permanent fixture at the museum, whereas the second new exhibit is on tour from Kelowna.
"It’s called The Social Life of Water, and it talks about the water resources of the Okanagan," Oomen said.
Kate Hansen, who has been running DARE programs since 2000.
"We use the ‘DDMM,’ DARE decision making model, to help us make better choices.
A fire completely destroyed an RV parked on private property just off Highway 97 in Oliver Tuesday evening.

A coliform test can tell if your well is impacted by septic leakage or manure runoff, but it won’t tell you if residues from agricultural chemicals or spilled gas or oil are getting in your water.
Those are very different kinds of tests.
Across the northeastern US in general, most aquifers are shallow; on average less than 80 feet below the surface.
A drilled well is more secure, but regardless how deep it is, it’s still vulnerable to surface contamination near the wellhead.
Many older pesticides contained high levels of lead, arsenic and copper, heavy metals which do not break down, and some farms still have high levels of these metals in the soil.
How do organic pollutants get into our water?
It’s shockingly easy to pollute groundwater here in the northeast where it rains a lot and the distance to groundwater is relatively small.
(Fortunately, the odor threshold for benzene is 50-100 ppb, so you’d never be drinking benzene at that level).
Testing for organics is complicated: for example, checking for gas and solvents, pesticides, and antifreeze all require different tests.
Most contaminants can be removed with the right kind of filtration system, but systems can be quite expensive to maintain.

LAKE WORTH The way Andrea Ible sees it, she’s more than just a school teacher. “I’m not just teaching part of the child, I teach the whole child,” said Ible, a third-grade teacher at South Grade Elementary the past five years. “There’s the academic piece, the social piece, the emotional piece. When you put them together, it makes up the whole child. When a child comes into my class sad, I have to figure out what is going on with that child before I can teach him or her or I will just be teaching a wall.” Ible’s job can be particularly challenging because most of her students are from Guatemala. They struggle speaking and writing English. Some have self-esteem issues. One student recently lost her mom to a drug overdose. “These kids have gone through a lot of traumatic experiences,” Ible said. Yet, they work hard and do their best to excel for a teacher they love. To reward their efforts, Ible partnered with a group of philanthropic women, who bought summer clothes, socks and sneakers online from Macy’s, Target and…

Retired Wareham teacher earns kudos from Buzzards Bay Coalition.
Held in the Chart Room restaurant at Cataumet on Cape Cod, the event featured a review of the coalition’s strides toward stemming nitrogen pollution across the South Coast.
After accepting the award, Whittle said that volunteers should, “believe with all of your heart in an organization’s mission.
And I believe [the Buzzards Bay Coalition] is doing good work.
Otherwise, why would you volunteer?” After Whittle’s presentation, David Pincumbe, recently retired from the Environmental Protection Agency, was given the Buzzards Bay Guardian Award.
He received it in part for helping spearhead an overhaul at the Wareham Water Pollution Control Facility.
Korrin Petersen, the coalition’s senior attorney, described the upgrade as hugely successful, noting it reduced the amount of nitrogen entering the bay by 90 percent, which is “close to the limit technologically of what New England wastewater treatment plants are capable of.” Pincumbe joined the federal agency in 1983 and retired last month.
In accepting the award, Pincumbe said he appreciated the recognition and urged the crowd to keep working towards its mission.
“We need to keep fighting for better water quality,” he said.
For more information on the Buzzards Bay Coalition, click here.

Students from Cedar Hollow School in Grand Island learned some important lessons about water and had some fun at the same time at the 29th annual Children’s Groundwater Festival on Tuesday at Central Community College.
"What we are doing is trying to teach kids how to better preserve and take care of our aquifer systems and overall groundwater usage," said Kathryn Langrehr, GISH environmental science teacher.
The GISH students, many of whom attended the Children’s Groundwater Festival as fourth-graders, constructed the stations and also were the instructors for Water Island.
Each station had a different game about such topics as aquifers, domestic water use, the difference between salt and fresh water, pollution, flooding and infiltration.
"We want to teach them the basic of these systems," Langrehr said.
It is the water we drink."
The GISH students taught the fourth-graders through kinesthetic learning, in which students carry out physical activities instead of listening to a lecture or watching a demonstration.
"The fourth-graders are able to move around and get their hands on the projects, like how to make a filter," Langrehr said.
"It is dealing with the whole growth mindset in reaching them."
By allowing the high school students to take the initiative, she said, they learned about leadership.

High school students teach second graders about life on the farm.
TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – A group of high school and second grade students learned about life on the farm Wednesday afternoon.
Members of Seaman High School’s Future Farmers of America and USD second graders spent the day at the North Topeka Saddle Club for their third annual "Day on the Farm."
The younger students learned about livestock, poultry, bee pollination, water pollution and even what plants to eat and how to plant them.
One FFA adviser said having the high school students as the teachers makes learning more fun.
"The actual high schoolers get to do most of the presenting throughout the day, so it’s really nice for the second graders to not just hear from the teachers all day everyday, and actually hear from kids who were once their age, who have ties a lot closer to them," said Megan Van Gordon, and FFA Adviser at Seaman.
"It’s really nice for my kids to get the presentation experience, and for the second graders to hear from someone a little closer in age than all the teachers are."
The Jefferson County Humane Society was also there to help out with the day.

Elementary School Students Learn Science from Future Teachers.
“We’re students working with students but we kind of get into the hang of becoming teachers.
They’re fine and they are ready to learn,” said William Paterson University senior Lianna Palladino.
Third-grader Keila Almonte explained what she learned about earthquakes: “More of them are in California because of the plates underground, which if they touch each other will make a big earthquake.” Students built models of buildings.
The event is part of a 10-year partnership between the university and Paterson School 12.
“William Paterson University and Paterson Public Schools have a partnership where we place our interns, graduates of our programs, work in our schools.
It’s partially us teaching, it’s partly bringing the kids to do hands-on experiments, and it’s also giving back to the community because what we’re doing is we’re planting a vegetable garden at Paterson School 12 that the community has access to.
So we’re giving back and we’re learning with the kids as well,” said William Paterson University senior Arielle Testa.
This event is part of a year-round partnership between the university and the school.
In fact, students will head over to work with the elementary schoolers on cleaning up the community garden and a month later, they’ll take the seedlings they planted today and plant them in the garden to grow over the summer.